[1]The good folks at the NC Defend Education Coalition[2] will gather this Saturday at NC A&T in Greensboro. The group — which is spearheaded by college students — could also use some donations to help defray the costs. Scroll down for more details.

Here is the official announcment:

The future is ours! A fight back and organizing conference of the NC Defend Education Coalition: With a keynote address from Waldemiro Vélez Soto, a leader of the student movement in Puerto Rico

On February 10, hundreds of students from across NC marched against tuition hikes and budget cuts.

On March 24, we’ll be gathering again to chart out the next steps for our movement.

The NC Defend Education Coalition will be hosting a statewide student organizing conference called “The Future is Ours!” at NC A&T University. Students, young people, and community activists from across the state will be getting together to strategize about how we can continue to build the movement for justice, for education, for workers’ rights, and against budget cuts and attacks on our communities. There will also be organizing and skills workshops, and opportunities to network with student organizers from across NC.

We will also be joined by Waldemiro Vélez Soto, a leader of the student movement in Puerto Rico, who will be delivering the keynote address of the conference. Students in Puerto Rico have been leading an incredible struggle for the past several years against tuition hikes, budget cuts, and privatization, and have led a series of successful strikes that have shut down the university system there.

Tuition is skyrocketing. Class sizes are getting larger. Public education at all levels is being privatized and resegregated. The banks are pushing us deeper into student loan debt. The legislature wants to make more budget cuts to education and public services. SB 575 is yet another attack on workers’ rights.